State government grant will help Goulburn-Mulwaree Council overhaul outdated flood plans

Fri Nov 08 07:50:04 EST 2013

Photo

The Mulwaree Ponds and Wollondilly River meeting at Goulburn.

Goulburn Mulwaree Council

Flood plans, developed for the city of Goulburn in the 1970s, are set to be finally overhauled.

The Goulburn-Mulwaree Council has received a $124,000 state government grant for the project, and will contribute just over $60, 000 of its own money.

The Goulburn Mayor, Geoff Kettle, says council is in the process of installing the first ever flood gauges along the Mulwaree and Wollondilly rivers.

He says that will compliment the updated flood plan and will help the city better prepare for heavy rain.

We just haven't had the funding to be able to go and do all the studies that are needed, including hydraulic modelling and all the community consultations. This is a great win for us.

Goulburn-Mulwaree Mayor, Geoff Kettle

"The last one that was done was in the 70s, which is right out of date," he said.

"We just haven't had the funding to be able to go and do all the studies that are needed, including hydraulic modelling and all the community consultations.

"This is a great win for us.

"We've been wanting to do it, residents in our low-lying area wanting us to do it, so this has just come along at the right time.

Visual mapping undertaken during recent floods in the Mulwaree and Wollondilly rivers, is set to be fed into the updated flood management plan.

"We want to do it right, and given that we've had flood events in recent years... we've been doing and the SES have been doing visual modelling, just manually plotting it on to areas, onto CBD mapping," Councillor Kettle said.

"So there's been some dartboard calculations been done.

"This will just compliment that.

"It'll all be fed in and we'll have a proper flood management plan coming out of this."